Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I have two key points I would like to make in relation to both this motion and also to the legislation that the government has rushed through today. The first is do not rush legislation because the people who pay the price from rushed legislation are not in this House but they are out there in the community, in our businesses, in our workplaces, and they are the ones who are the victims when we don't get it right. And when we stuff things through the parliament so speedily and without proper investigation and consideration of the detail of the legislation we're going to put through, then we are creating problems for the real people in Australia who have to deal with the consequences of our actions.

The second point I would like to make is that the House cares—certainly I do, and I think actually most of us do—very deeply about real wage growth. But if we're going to grow real wages, then we need to grow productivity and we need to be assessing how this legislation and other legislation effectively grows productivity. I am deeply frustrated that the government has cut off the debate today, so now we can't debate whether we should actually have the Productivity Commission assess our workplace laws and see whether we can actually grow wages, because that is what this country needs if we are going to raise the living standards of Australians.

Going back to the first point, the government put forward the legislation and the details in the Senate last week. I have had deep concerns with this legislation from the start. I do not think the government has made a strong case as to why this is going to make a fundamental difference to the productivity and long-term wage growth of people in our country. I support that there are issues we need to deal with, such as the gig economy, which is a new part of the economy, but what the government has done here, and previously, is significant overreach, including the changes made to the definition of 'casual', which is extremely problematic.

In terms of what the government rushed through, particularly over the weekend—there has been put forward this idea of the right to disconnect. I feel very strongly that it is important for people to be able to take a break from work, to be able to do that and to work with their employers to make sure they can do that in a way that works with their family life but also works for the employer. However, the way to do this is not to rush through legislation. We didn't get the amendments until Thursday. We got the details today, Monday, and we are now being forced to vote.

One of the things that I do in my electorate is talk to people because most of my businesses do not spend their time watching question time—thankfully, because it's a waste of time; they don't spend time reading through detailed IR legislation amendments coming out of the Senate. They are too busy running their businesses and doing their jobs. The problem with what the government is doing today, as it has done previously, is it rushes through legislation and then the business community—not just the peak bodies, but the small businesses, the medium businesses—are actually going to have to deal with this legislation. They're actually going to have to deal with how this affects their staff and how they'll make this work. They have had no chance to engage on this and really give us their thoughts on what is going to happen. We pass it and they have to live with the consequences. That is why I'm so frustrated with what the government has done today, both in rushing it through from last week and then forcing the House to rubberstamp legislation that we have barely seen. That is incredibly problematic. It's quite against what the government said it was going to stand for, in terms of integrity of government and better consultation, and I significantly object to it.

The last point I want to make is about real wage growth. I have sat here in the House and listened time and time again to the Leader of the House lecturing us about the government's desire to push up real wages. He and I are 100 per cent on the same page on the desire to push up real wages. But if he is serious and if the government is serious about pushing up real wages, then they should have absolutely no problem in having the Productivity Commission look at what the implications of workplace legislation, including these changes, will be on real wages. We know the only way that real wages grow is through productivity growth. But the government is rejecting even a debate on whether the Productivity Commission can look at workplace laws. I looked at their e61 legislation, which showed that previous Labor governments pushed through legislation that was meant to help workers and actually ended up with more workers in the casual sector and more money going to capital instead of labour.

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